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EPA and politics
Q: Was there something inherent in the party politics, not just daily practical party politics -- something philosophical that perhaps led Democrats to look to more decentralized kinds of approaches, whereas Republicans took a more centralized approach during that late '70s, early '80s period?
MR. COSTLE: Leaving aside the question of Democratic or Republican philosophies, I will say this: Many times we would get petitions at headquarters for rulemaking from industry or environmental advocates, on the grounds that they would rather deal with EPA in a single setting in which they knew how to operate, i.e., Washington, rather than have to deal with 50 States. So I think if there is a bias towards centralized government in rulemaking, it is because the affected parties think it is to their advantage.
This may be changing today because of the generally low regard with which government is held in the public mind. The radical Republicans may have temporarily won the PR (Public Relations) wars, saying, "Government is bad and big government is worse. Federal government is the worst, and Washington is the source of all your problems." We are probably going to have to muddle through this stage until people realize that, if you didn't have federal government, you'd have to invent it. The States couldn't possibly set standards for the auto industry. They wouldn't know how to do it, nor would they have the technical resources. But for other issues -- and contrary to what some people argue today -- I think that the original conception of the Clean Air and Water Acts was strategically more clever than people acknowledge. The laws recognize that there are some things the States can do better, frontline enforcement being one of them.